Collective sonnet I
2026 - Jack Bachmann 

through Emma Lazarus and Assata Shakur

Now and again, we slide along the streets and slip
to catch ourselves on ice-less pavement. 
We shuffle together, huddled together 
(“masses yearning” etc.)

Struggling to light votives in the winter, 
tilting the candle, six cupped hands burning 
fingertips, sharing “contraband in hell,” 
loving, breaking the wind, our smoke 
and breath changing the weather; 
the cruel hot summer of America demising.
I remember a woman slumped in the snow, 
candle in hand. A vigil of one light meshing. 
We moved in the numb seeping beneath us, 
catching breath, imagining spring,